General Chicago Outfit Info Dumping Ground

[Snakes]

I just recently joined this forum and have spent the last few weeks reading all the posts in this thread and trying to catch up. Some fascinating discussions throughout! I think I learned more reading this thread than all the books I've read on the Outfit combined, and that's pretty much all of them. Good work everyone! It's also nice not seeing some of the idiots that post on gangsterbb.net, which is refreshing.

Quick question: Can someone explain the pecking order between Ricca and Accardo? Also, was Ferriola ever the boss and was Marco D'Amico made?? Just kidding...

I'm from Springfield, IL and my family has been involved in Illinois politics for 4 generations. One of the things that got me interested in the Outfit was the connection between gangsters and politicians going back to the time of Hinky Dink and Bathhouse John (and probably earlier). I don't think it's been discussed much, but does anyone have any early history of Pat Marcy and John D'Arco?

Specifically, how did they end up as the Ward Committeeman/Alderman/Ward Secretary? I assume they started their Outfit careers in a crew, under a capo/made guy committing street crimes. Is there any information on their early criminal careers? How did these guys get put into the First Ward?

I think the definitive piece on the Outfit/Government corruption is Ovid Demaris "Captive City" but it doesn't really get into how these guys got their start and who they came up with.

Also, can anyone explain the connection from the Springfield, IL Zito Family to the Outfit? I assume they operated as their own independent family, but what was the connection to the Outfit, if any?

D'Arco had no criminal record and Marcy served some time in Illinois State prison for burglary in the 30s, but other than that had no criminal record. It could be assumed that they were chosen to represent Outfit interests in the First Ward due in part to their minimal criminal record which could more easily pass them off as legitimate political figures.

D'Arco was allegedly groomed early on for a role as an Outfit political fixer but as his Outfit ties became more obvious (60s), Marcy took on a larger role. The two were allegedly bagmen for Outfit bosses concerning Loop gambling and extortion money and they also set up Outfit connected figures with city jobs. By the mid-70s, D'Arco was in poor health but still retained influence in the Loop and First Ward as Committeeman of the First Ward Regular Democratic Organization.

Marcy was initially D'Arco's secretary and acted as a go-between for D'Arco but gained more power in the 1970s as D'Arco became less active. They were partners in an insurance company that was allegedly involved in some shady dealings but political fixing was Marcy's specialty, bribing judges and attorneys to fix or throw out cases involving Outfit affiliates, the most infamous being the bench trial acquittal of Outfit hitman Harry Aleman. It seems like Marcy was initially subordinate to D'Arco but later information indicated that D'Arco was under Marcy and reported to Vincent Solano. Whether or not Marcy also reported to a captain at any point in time or reported directly to the boss is under debate. We just don't have enough information. D'Arco was linked to the criminal activity of the First Ward and was never indicted, but Marcy and Fred Roti (First Ward alderman) were in 1990. Marcy died in 1993 before trial and D'Arco died a year later. Roti was publicly identified as a Chicago LCN member and sentenced to four years in federal prison.

The FBI did minimal investigation of Marcy and D'Arco in the 1960s. I'm not sure if this was because Outfit influence stonewalled any investigations or if they just did not recognize the damaging influence the two held over the Chicago political and legal system, but either way there isn't a ton of information out there on either one of them, especially concerning their specific role within the LCN organization (although both were identified as members).

Tony can explain a little bit more about the importance of the Chicago political influence and I'm sure I forgot something, but that's as much as I could scrape up in a few minutes.

[Cosmik_Debris]

I just recently joined this forum and have spent the last few weeks reading all the posts in this thread and trying to catch up. Some fascinating discussions throughout! I think I learned more reading this thread than all the books I've read on the Outfit combined, and that's pretty much all of them. Good work everyone! It's also nice not seeing some of the idiots that post on gangsterbb.net, which is refreshing.

Quick question: Can someone explain the pecking order between Ricca and Accardo? Also, was Ferriola ever the boss and was Marco D'Amico made?? Just kidding...

I'm from Springfield, IL and my family has been involved in Illinois politics for 4 generations. One of the things that got me interested in the Outfit was the connection between gangsters and politicians going back to the time of Hinky Dink and Bathhouse John (and probably earlier). I don't think it's been discussed much, but does anyone have any early history of Pat Marcy and John D'Arco?

Specifically, how did they end up as the Ward Committeeman/Alderman/Ward Secretary? I assume they started their Outfit careers in a crew, under a capo/made guy committing street crimes. Is there any information on their early criminal careers? How did these guys get put into the First Ward?

I think the definitive piece on the Outfit/Government corruption is Ovid Demaris "Captive City" but it doesn't really get into how these guys got their start and who they came up with.

Also, can anyone explain the connection from the Springfield, IL Zito Family to the Outfit? I assume they operated as their own independent family, but what was the connection to the Outfit, if any?

D'Arco had no criminal record and Marcy served some time in Illinois State prison for burglary in the 30s, but other than that had no criminal record. It could be assumed that they were chosen to represent Outfit interests in the First Ward due in part to their minimal criminal record which could more easily pass them off as legitimate political figures.

D'Arco was allegedly groomed early on for a role as an Outfit political fixer but as his Outfit ties became more obvious (60s), Marcy took on a larger role. The two were allegedly bagmen for Outfit bosses concerning Loop gambling and extortion money and they also set up Outfit connected figures with city jobs. By the mid-70s, D'Arco was in poor health but still retained influence in the Loop and First Ward as Committeeman of the First Ward Regular Democratic Organization.

Marcy was initially D'Arco's secretary and acted as a go-between for D'Arco but gained more power in the 1970s as D'Arco became less active. They were partners in an insurance company that was allegedly involved in some shady dealings but political fixing was Marcy's specialty, bribing judges and attorneys to fix or throw out cases involving Outfit affiliates, the most infamous being the bench trial acquittal of Outfit hitman Harry Aleman. It seems like Marcy was initially subordinate to D'Arco but later information indicated that D'Arco was under Marcy and reported to Vincent Solano. Whether or not Marcy also reported to a captain at any point in time or reported directly to the boss is under debate. We just don't have enough information. D'Arco was linked to the criminal activity of the First Ward and was never indicted, but Marcy and Fred Roti (First Ward alderman) were in 1990. Marcy died in 1993 before trial and D'Arco died a year later. Roti was publicly identified as a Chicago LCN member and sentenced to four years in federal prison.

The FBI did minimal investigation of Marcy and D'Arco in the 1960s. I'm not sure if this was because Outfit influence stonewalled any investigations or if they just did not recognize the damaging influence the two held over the Chicago political and legal system, but either way there isn't a ton of information out there on either one of them, especially concerning their specific role within the LCN organization (although both were identified as members).

Tony can explain a little bit more about the importance of the Chicago political influence and I'm sure I forgot something, but that's as much as I could scrape up in a few minutes.

Thanks Snakes. I actually know most of what they did once they got political power in the late-50's, early 60's until GAMBAT brought it all crashing down. I also know there was a wiretap in the First Ward office as far back as the 60's. I've always been more interested in how they got there, which I think you did a good job of explaining. Basically they were just neighborhood guys with a clean (enough) record to be put in those positions.

It honestly blows my mind that it was known in 60's what Marcy and Co. were up to and it basically continued uninterrupted until the early 90's. Knowing what I know about Chicago and Illinois politics/government, it's not totally surprising, but it really wasn't a secret. The book "Boss" by Mike Royko came out in 1970 and explained in great deal the Outfits connection to local and state government and still, nothing happened until the late-80's- early 90's.

[B.]

Great description from Snakes.

Should also mention that the Family's early leaders were heavily involved in politics, much as the mafia was in general going back to Sicily, so grooming certain figures as "mafia politicians" was already common practice in that world and the city of Chicago created a perfect environment for it.

The wiretap of Sam Syracuse (whose father was likely a sleeper Chicago member with a history in Buffalo, Detroit, and Ohio) meeting with Cerone and Giancana is very informative as they are encouraging Syracuse to pursue politics and Syracuse wants to help "our friends" but he is reluctant to do it as his father was a longtime fugitive for a Toledo murder and the Syracuse family had a lot of dirty laundry they were hiding behind multiple aliases. Like Snakes said, guys with limited to clean records and no infamy in their family history would have been strong candidates but the Syracuse tape still shows us who/how the leadership chose or groomed politicians from within the mafia element.

[PolackTony]

In the early 60s, the FBI bug in the 1st Ward Democratic Party HQ recorded a conversation between D’Arco and Marcy, discussing their attempt to get an audience with Giancana. D’Arco had been ordered by Giancana to drop out of the race for 1st Ward Alderman and him and Marcy wanted to appeal the order. But they couldn’t go directly to Giancana, and discussed having to get a meeting set up via Skids Caruso. This would be consistent with the two (and we can put Freddie Roti here as well) as being soldiers assigned to Caruso at this time. As Snakes noted, there is some evidence to support that by the early 80s they may have been reassigned to Solano. I’ve seen claims in the past that Marcy was at some point promoted to captain himself, but I’ve seen absolutely nothing myself that I can recall at the moment that would support this. My guess would be that the Caruso crew was broken up or reformed when LaPietra took it over and the political guys may have been reassigned to Solano, though we really have very little to go on here.

Springfield was its own Family. We have very little substantive info about the Springfield outfit, though it almost certainly existed by the 1920s at the latest. During that period there was also mafia activity in other areas of Downstate IL, like Marion, Johnston City, Benld, and some other towns, as coal mining brought Sicilian and other Italian immigrants to a number of parts of rural IL. What we do know is that Downstate/Springfield had ties to Chicago, STL, and Rockford, and Chicago was their avvocato on the Commission. By the time the FBI began investigating LCN as such in earnest in the 1960, Springfield, like Madison, had declined substantially, with a small and aging membership and little serious criminal activity so far as we know. Unlike Madison, we don’t know for a fact when Springfield disbanded, though presumably it happened following Frank Zito’s death in ‘74. We had a recent thread on the Springfield outfit which is worth reading.

[Cosmik_Debris]

Great description from Snakes.

Should also mention that the Family's early leaders were heavily involved in politics, much as the mafia was in general going back to Sicily, so grooming certain figures as "mafia politicians" was already common practice in that world and the city of Chicago created a perfect environment for it.

The wiretap of Sam Syracuse (whose father was likely a sleeper Chicago member with a history in Buffalo, Detroit, and Ohio) meeting with Cerone and Giancana is very informative as they are encouraging Syracuse to pursue politics and Syracuse wants to help "our friends" but he is reluctant to do it as his father was a longtime fugitive for a Toledo murder and the Syracuse family had a lot of dirty laundry they were hiding behind multiple aliases. Like Snakes said, guys with limited to clean records and no infamy in their family history would have been strong candidates but the Syracuse tape still shows us who/how the leadership chose or groomed politicians from within the mafia element.

I believe Sam Syracuse had a connection to Springfield, IL, if I'm not mistaken. Or maybe his father.

Also, reading that tap with Cerone, Giancana and Sam Syracuse, he is worried that his true last name(s) and his father's history might come out. Around this same time, Fred Roti was entering politics, and it was well known who and what his Dad was all about. They even shared the same last night.

I'm curious what the difference was in those two. It was no secret who and what the Roti's were all about. Why was that a dealbreaker for Sam Syracuse? Or maybe the Outfit still would've been fine with him entering elected office and he just didn't want to embarrass himself and his family. Roti must not have cared and they didn't either.

[B.]

With Syracuse, his father was still a wanted fugitive for an infamous mafia murder so that was probably a big factor. He was very concerned on the wiretap about people finding out his father's true identity. And yep, the father was surveilled driving with Frank Zito in Springfield in the 1970s and they had other ties to Springfield.

[Cosmik_Debris]

I don't think I saw any discussion about this recent story. Any insight on this one? I assume it's Gary Gags who he stiffed on the $10K loan.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/history/ ... story.html

Sal Pullia, who had ties to politics and the Chicago Outfit, was last seen at a Melrose Park restaurant in ‘81

When a politician disappears, the police usually have some good ideas about where to look for him or his bullet-ridden body. They ask bartenders if he has been showing up with a woman who isn’t his wife, or with another guy’s girlfriend. Was he in hock to a shady character for services rendered? Had he thwarted a rival’s hopes for elective office?

But in Sal P. Pullia’s case the cast of characters was so large, it was hard to know where to begin. Vanishing in 1981, he’s never been heard from since. A Melrose Park resident and Democratic committeeman, his story is regularly rehashed in a sidebar when newspapers report another puzzling disappearance.

It is the gold standard of missing persons sagas.

On June 3, 1981, Pullia, then 33, had dinner with Sam Scott, a Chicago banker, at Vic Giannotti’s, a Forest Park restaurant.

Pullia had left his $30,000-a-year job in the Cook County clerk’s office a month earlier. He managed the department that approved or rejected applications for tax deferments. He rebranded himself as a business consultant and wanted a tutorial from Scott on how to attract clients.

Perhaps that also prompted him to circulate a letter from the U.S. attorney’s office thanking him for being a witness in its investigation of the Cook County board of tax appeals.

‘I think what sunk his ship was the letter,” a former investigator told the Tribune. “It made him look like he was proud to be stool pigeon.”

At 11 p.m. on that fateful day in 1981, Pullia arrived at Rocky’s Drive Inn, 2212 North Ave., two blocks from his home. A Melrose Park police officer on routine patrol saw Pullia driving east on North Avenue in his distinctive silver Volvo sedan shortly before midnight. About 2:30 a.m., he left Rocky’s.

Authorities believed that John “Jackie the Lackey” Cerone, No. 3 in the Chicago mob’s hierarchy, owned Rocky’s, O’Brien and Baumann noted.

O’Brien and Baumann reported that investigators learned Pullia had been told not to run for reelection by Chicago’s 1st Ward Committeeman John D’Arco, reportedly the mob’s ambassador to the Democratic machine. Pullia’s committeeman position was considered a mafia fiefdom. His predecessor, Ralph “Babe” Serpico, had been sentenced to prison for bribery and tax evasion.

“I do not believe in smoke-filled-room politics,” he said in campaign rallies. “I’m not a part of those people (the mob). My reputation is the only thing I value.”

But he couldn’t deny his financial debt to a mobster. He had borrowed $10,000 from the son of the late Joseph “Joe Gags” Gagliano, a well-known loan shark. Not only did Pullia stiff the mobster’s son, a second-generation juice merchant, he claimed it was a campaign donation, not a loan.

With that cover story, he might well have acquired the unforgiving enmity of both the Outfit and the Internal Revenue System.

Besides favoring mobbed-up joints, Pullia had a mobster pedigree. His father, Frank Pullia, was, in law-enforcement lingo, “known to be an associate of Fiore Buccieri,” a top-ranking mobster.

In their generation, Melrose Park and Forest Park gave birth to cops-and–robbers friendships. They began in childhood. One buddy goes straight. The other is crooked. But they are bonded for life. In the elder Pullia’s day, the Armory Lounge in Forest Park was the headquarters of Sam “Momo” Giancana, the mafia’s boss of bosses.

Sal Pullia was drawn to politics. He was a member of the Democratic National Committee, and during President Jimmy Carter’s administration was a “frequent recipient of phone calls from the White House,” the Tribune reported.

Following his disappearance, Pullia’s wife and brother-in-law, John Carpino, a DuPage County police detective, began their own search, at one point walking the parking lots of the city’s airports, looking for the missing man’s silver Volvo.

Chicago police officers also checked every car in O’Hare International Airport’s sprawling parking lot and prowled Rush Street, the nightlife district Pullia was known to frequent.

“All leads have been exhausted,” said Detective Cmdr. Robert Banks, after six months of searching.

“We all want Sal back, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen,” said Gary Marinaro, Pullia’s interim replacement as committeeman.

A grand jury convened by Cook County State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley came to a similar dead end. It issued more than 30 subpoenas, creating a veritable Venn diagram of Chicago’s overlapping political and mobster circles.

The FBI suggested checking an Oak Park hospital. Aiuppa had respiratory problems. “The investigators went to the hospital to question employees there. When they saw Aiuppa leaving the building, they handed him the subpoena,” the Tribune reported.

The mayor of Melrose Park, a childhood friend of Pullia’s, was granted immunity from prosecution but nonetheless refused to testify. Others, including Aiuppa, reportedly pleaded the Fifth Amendment. The investigation produced nary a lead and was headed to the cold-case files.

But it was resuscitated in 1988.

A burial ground of syndicate victims was uncovered in DuPage County. Parts of several bodies were found in a grave dug in a field near Argonne National Laboratory. Lime had been poured over them to quicken their decomposition.

The first remains were initially thought to be those of of Richard Ferraro. The owner of a Calumet City junkyard, he had gone missing in 1977.

Pullia matched that description. He’d stiffed a loan shark and ratted on patronage employees. Of course, he might be alive. But he didn’t fit the profile of a runaway.

Yet nothing was missing from Pullia’s safety deposit box. His estate wasn’t much: a heavily mortgaged home and some stock in a Wheaton bowling alley.

And FBI agents didn’t find his remains in the mafia victims’ burial grounds.

So there the story ends, its mystery unresolved. That is, until perhaps some detective is intrigued by a dusty old file and proceeds to find a clue his or her predecessors overlooked. Or, an enterprising reporter going through old newspaper clips stumbles upon a yarn just too good to be forgotten, and starts digging.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated that a body found in DuPage County in 1988 was that of Richard Ferraro. Investigators initially suspected the body was Ferraro’s, but later determined that not to be the case.

[PolackTony]

Great description from Snakes.

Should also mention that the Family's early leaders were heavily involved in politics, much as the mafia was in general going back to Sicily, so grooming certain figures as "mafia politicians" was already common practice in that world and the city of Chicago created a perfect environment for it.

The wiretap of Sam Syracuse (whose father was likely a sleeper Chicago member with a history in Buffalo, Detroit, and Ohio) meeting with Cerone and Giancana is very informative as they are encouraging Syracuse to pursue politics and Syracuse wants to help "our friends" but he is reluctant to do it as his father was a longtime fugitive for a Toledo murder and the Syracuse family had a lot of dirty laundry they were hiding behind multiple aliases. Like Snakes said, guys with limited to clean records and no infamy in their family history would have been strong candidates but the Syracuse tape still shows us who/how the leadership chose or groomed politicians from within the mafia element.

There’s a long history here and a lot of historical context to guys like Marcy, D’Arco, and Fred Roti, who were the last generation of old style mafia politicians.

The mafia in Chicago was presumably involved in City politics as far back as the 1890s, when Stefano Malato, an attorney from Tèrmini Imerese and a major leader in Chicago’s Italian community, became Alderman for the incipient Grand Ave community. Malato later became a Cook County States Attorney until he was forced to step down due to scandal and if not a member of the mafia was certainly in close connection.

Marcy and D’Arco were from Taylor St, of course, and the nexus between mob power and local politics there needs no introduction, given the likes of D’Andrea, Esposito, Johnny Powers, the Gennas, Rollie Libonati, Vito Marzullo, etc. But Marcy and D’Arco didn’t become Taylor St politicos, they instead were active in the 1st Ward. It’s important to keep in mind that the Old 1st Ward wasn’t just any Ward. Under the system of “aldermanic privilege” in Chicago, a Ward functioned as the de facto personal fiefdom of its Alderman, who was basically like a local under-mayor and boss. Nothing happened in a Ward without the say so and involvement of the Alderman. The 1st Ward’s fiefdom was the Loop — it encompassed the second largest conglomeration of business in the Us after midtown Manhattan. Importantly for clout, it also encompassed City Hall, and thus the 1st Ward political apparatus had major influence in the various departments of the City of Chicago, including controlling hiring in the army of patronage workers employed by the Department of Streets and Sanitation, which either directly or indirectly via the Union locals representing public sector workers, was dominated by the mafia for many decades.

As I noted above, I believe that Marcy and D’Arco were *very likely* soldiers in the Roti/Caruso crew. And Bruno Roti had serious clout in the 1st Ward via influence in hiring for Streets and San. Thus, it would make perfect sense that the members entrusted to manage 1st Ward politics would be assigned to the Roti/Caruso crew, as the control of the City’s patronage army was a central factor as to why control of the 1st Ward was so important to both the mafia and the Democratic political machine.

There is a lot of context to these questions, a whole ecosystem to mafia-connected politicians in the old “River Wards” and “Westside bloc” who backed each other in the City Council, stuffed City and County departments with their lackeys, relatives, and paesani, and had clout in Springfield by getting the vote out for their own people in races for seats in the State Legislature. Much more than I can get into here, of course. Guys like Marcy, D’Arco, And Roti got to where they were because of early familial and neighborhood connections, and then decades of work in City departments, as precinct captains in Ward electoral politics, and likely in other capacities when they were young (there was always a need in Chicago for muscle to ensure that people voted for who they were supposed to, or to make sure that fires, robberies, or other acts of God guaranteed that opposition ballots would be tragically lost, etc.).

A good example is Fred Roti. His father Bruno exemplified the interpenetration of mafia power, social influence, and political clout, as a captain of the outfit crew based in the 1st Ward, President of the San Rocco Di Simbarìo Society, and clout-broker in Streets and San. Freddie wins two races for the State Legislature, riding the wave of votes guaranteed by D’Arco’s 1st Ward Democratic machine and its legions of City workers. When Fred leaves office in Springfield due to redistricting, D’Arco immediately gets him a job in Streets and San as an “engineer” in the sewers detail, while also serving as a precinct captain for D’Arco. After D’Arco is taken out by Giancana and eventually Danny Parillo became 1st Ward Alderman, Parillo, clearly a place-holder keeping the seat warm, is ordered by the mob to resign in ‘68 and Roti is tapped to run. He wins the next 6 elections with hardly any opposition, and, an inducted member of LCN, becomes one of the most powerful and respected Aldermen in the history of Chicago, Chairman of the City Council’s Buildings Committee, with the authority to greenlight iconic projects like the Sears Tower.

[Snakes]

Thanks for the extra info, I'm glad you mentioned Roti essentially succeeding D Arco as alderman as I completely neglected to do so.

[PolackTony]

I don't think I saw any discussion about this recent story. Any insight on this one? I assume it's Gary Gags who he stiffed on the $10K loan.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/history/ ... story.html

Sal Pullia, who had ties to politics and the Chicago Outfit, was last seen at a Melrose Park restaurant in ‘81

When a politician disappears, the police usually have some good ideas about where to look for him or his bullet-ridden body. They ask bartenders if he has been showing up with a woman who isn’t his wife, or with another guy’s girlfriend. Was he in hock to a shady character for services rendered? Had he thwarted a rival’s hopes for elective office?

But in Sal P. Pullia’s case the cast of characters was so large, it was hard to know where to begin. Vanishing in 1981, he’s never been heard from since. A Melrose Park resident and Democratic committeeman, his story is regularly rehashed in a sidebar when newspapers report another puzzling disappearance.

It is the gold standard of missing persons sagas.

On June 3, 1981, Pullia, then 33, had dinner with Sam Scott, a Chicago banker, at Vic Giannotti’s, a Forest Park restaurant.

Pullia had left his $30,000-a-year job in the Cook County clerk’s office a month earlier. He managed the department that approved or rejected applications for tax deferments. He rebranded himself as a business consultant and wanted a tutorial from Scott on how to attract clients.

Perhaps that also prompted him to circulate a letter from the U.S. attorney’s office thanking him for being a witness in its investigation of the Cook County board of tax appeals.

‘I think what sunk his ship was the letter,” a former investigator told the Tribune. “It made him look like he was proud to be stool pigeon.”

At 11 p.m. on that fateful day in 1981, Pullia arrived at Rocky’s Drive Inn, 2212 North Ave., two blocks from his home. A Melrose Park police officer on routine patrol saw Pullia driving east on North Avenue in his distinctive silver Volvo sedan shortly before midnight. About 2:30 a.m., he left Rocky’s.

Authorities believed that John “Jackie the Lackey” Cerone, No. 3 in the Chicago mob’s hierarchy, owned Rocky’s, O’Brien and Baumann noted.

O’Brien and Baumann reported that investigators learned Pullia had been told not to run for reelection by Chicago’s 1st Ward Committeeman John D’Arco, reportedly the mob’s ambassador to the Democratic machine. Pullia’s committeeman position was considered a mafia fiefdom. His predecessor, Ralph “Babe” Serpico, had been sentenced to prison for bribery and tax evasion.

“I do not believe in smoke-filled-room politics,” he said in campaign rallies. “I’m not a part of those people (the mob). My reputation is the only thing I value.”

But he couldn’t deny his financial debt to a mobster. He had borrowed $10,000 from the son of the late Joseph “Joe Gags” Gagliano, a well-known loan shark. Not only did Pullia stiff the mobster’s son, a second-generation juice merchant, he claimed it was a campaign donation, not a loan.

With that cover story, he might well have acquired the unforgiving enmity of both the Outfit and the Internal Revenue System.

Besides favoring mobbed-up joints, Pullia had a mobster pedigree. His father, Frank Pullia, was, in law-enforcement lingo, “known to be an associate of Fiore Buccieri,” a top-ranking mobster.

In their generation, Melrose Park and Forest Park gave birth to cops-and–robbers friendships. They began in childhood. One buddy goes straight. The other is crooked. But they are bonded for life. In the elder Pullia’s day, the Armory Lounge in Forest Park was the headquarters of Sam “Momo” Giancana, the mafia’s boss of bosses.

Sal Pullia was drawn to politics. He was a member of the Democratic National Committee, and during President Jimmy Carter’s administration was a “frequent recipient of phone calls from the White House,” the Tribune reported.

Following his disappearance, Pullia’s wife and brother-in-law, John Carpino, a DuPage County police detective, began their own search, at one point walking the parking lots of the city’s airports, looking for the missing man’s silver Volvo.

Chicago police officers also checked every car in O’Hare International Airport’s sprawling parking lot and prowled Rush Street, the nightlife district Pullia was known to frequent.

“All leads have been exhausted,” said Detective Cmdr. Robert Banks, after six months of searching.

“We all want Sal back, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen,” said Gary Marinaro, Pullia’s interim replacement as committeeman.

A grand jury convened by Cook County State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley came to a similar dead end. It issued more than 30 subpoenas, creating a veritable Venn diagram of Chicago’s overlapping political and mobster circles.

The FBI suggested checking an Oak Park hospital. Aiuppa had respiratory problems. “The investigators went to the hospital to question employees there. When they saw Aiuppa leaving the building, they handed him the subpoena,” the Tribune reported.

The mayor of Melrose Park, a childhood friend of Pullia’s, was granted immunity from prosecution but nonetheless refused to testify. Others, including Aiuppa, reportedly pleaded the Fifth Amendment. The investigation produced nary a lead and was headed to the cold-case files.

But it was resuscitated in 1988.

A burial ground of syndicate victims was uncovered in DuPage County. Parts of several bodies were found in a grave dug in a field near Argonne National Laboratory. Lime had been poured over them to quicken their decomposition.

The first remains were initially thought to be those of of Richard Ferraro. The owner of a Calumet City junkyard, he had gone missing in 1977.

Pullia matched that description. He’d stiffed a loan shark and ratted on patronage employees. Of course, he might be alive. But he didn’t fit the profile of a runaway.

Yet nothing was missing from Pullia’s safety deposit box. His estate wasn’t much: a heavily mortgaged home and some stock in a Wheaton bowling alley.

And FBI agents didn’t find his remains in the mafia victims’ burial grounds.

So there the story ends, its mystery unresolved. That is, until perhaps some detective is intrigued by a dusty old file and proceeds to find a clue his or her predecessors overlooked. Or, an enterprising reporter going through old newspaper clips stumbles upon a yarn just too good to be forgotten, and starts digging.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated that a body found in DuPage County in 1988 was that of Richard Ferraro. Investigators initially suspected the body was Ferraro’s, but later determined that not to be the case.

To be clear, it isn’t a “recent story”. Sammy Pullia was disappeared in ‘81 and nothing substantive has come out about his disappearance in recent years. The Tribune just ran this as an historical piece.

Gary Gagliano is not at all related to Joe Gagliano, so the loan issue wasn’t related to Gary. Typically, guy’s who are otherwise in good standing aren’t going to get whacked out over a $10k loan. My assumption has been that Pullia was killed for defying orders to not run for re-election, on top of apparently being a witness for Federal investigation of the Cook County Assessor’s office.

[Patrickgold]

Isn’t Gary Gags the nephew of Joe Gags?

[Cosmik_Debris]

To be clear, it isn’t a “recent story”. Sammy Pullia was disappeared in ‘81 and nothing substantive has come out about his disappearance in recent years. The Tribune just ran this as an historical piece.

Gary Gagliano is not at all related to Joe Gagliano, so the loan issue wasn’t related to Gary. Typically, guy’s who are otherwise in good standing aren’t going to get whacked out over a $10k loan. My assumption has been that Pullia was killed for defying orders to not run for re-election, on top of apparently being a witness for Federal investigation of the Cook County Assessor’s office.

Ah, OK. I don't know why I assumed they were related. I thought I had read that somewhere.

It's crazy an organization that hasn't really killed anyone in almost 20 years was killing elected officials in the 80's. Aiuppa sure had a bloody reign.

[PolackTony]

Isn’t Gary Gags the nephew of Joe Gags?

Yeah, good catch. I was actually the one who wrote about their relation lol. Was thinking of Dom Galiano/Gagliano, who was Sicilian and unrelated.



Pullia's loan was not from Gary Gags, but from Joe's kid Sal Gagliano:

[PolackTony]

To be clear, it isn’t a “recent story”. Sammy Pullia was disappeared in ‘81 and nothing substantive has come out about his disappearance in recent years. The Tribune just ran this as an historical piece.

Gary Gagliano is not at all related to Joe Gagliano, so the loan issue wasn’t related to Gary. Typically, guy’s who are otherwise in good standing aren’t going to get whacked out over a $10k loan. My assumption has been that Pullia was killed for defying orders to not run for re-election, on top of apparently being a witness for Federal investigation of the Cook County Assessor’s office.

Ah, OK. I don't know why I assumed they were related. I thought I had read that somewhere.

It's crazy an organization that hasn't really killed anyone in almost 20 years was killing elected officials in the 80's. Aiuppa sure had a bloody reign.

I posted that in error, they actually were related -- I was posting while on the run and was thinking of Dom Gagliano, who was unrelated. But the loan to Pullia was from Joe Gag's son Salvatore.

Elmwood Park member Gary "Gary Gags" Gagliano has been claimed over the years to have been either a nephew or son of Joe Gags. Gary was in fact Joe's nephew. Gary M. Gagliano was born in Chicago in 1943 to Michael S. Gagliano and Lola Petri. Michael Gagliano was a younger brother of Joe Gags, born in 1920 in Chicago. Lola was born in 1922 in Chicago to Amelio Petri and Maria Puccini of Bagni di Lucca, Toscana. While in 1940 Michael Gagliano still lived with his family at Chicago and Kedvale in West Humboldt Park, in 1950 he lived with Lola, Gary, and daughter Susan at 37th St and 57th Ave in Cicero. The Petris lived first on Grand Ave near Halsted, later moving west to Ridgeway and Chicago Ave in Humboldt Park.

[Snakes]

Solano was President of Laborers Local #1 and was probably the "cleanest" of the captains at the time, so maybe the labor and political stuff was placed in his purview.